You see them everywhere: “Like” buttons, “Tweet” buttons, and now there are “+1” buttons. The social networks have extended their reach beyond their own websites and into almost every web site you visit. But did you know that these simple little buttons are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to adding social features to your website?
Several of the popular social networks (including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn) provide client-side APIs that enable you to build social capabilities into you application. With these APIs, your application can not only show a simple button for your users to express their opinion, but can also let you query information about their profile, friends, interests, and much more.
In this example-driven presentation, we'll examine the client-side APIs offered by Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. We'll dig even deeper than the “Like” button as we see how the APIs can be used to build rich social applications.
Craig Walls is a Principal Engineer, Java Champion, Alexa Champion, and the author of Spring AI in Action, Spring in Action, and Build Talking Apps. He's a zealous promoter of the Spring Framework, speaking frequently at local user groups and conferences and writing about Spring. When he's not slinging code, Craig is planning his next trip to Disney World or Disneyland and spending as much time as he can with his wife, two daughters, 1 bird and 2 dogs.